1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a facsimile apparatus and a facsimile system, and more particularly, to a facsimile apparatus and a facsimile system which are suitably applied to a plurality of facsimiles connected to a bus at the side of a subscriber of an ISDN (integrated services digital network) circuit as ISDN terminals.
2. Description of the Prior Art
A facsimile uses a thermal printer, a laser-beam printer or the like as an apparatus for outputting a facsimile image in reception, and a hard copy is obtained from the output apparatus. For the hard copy, a roll of paper can be used as well as cut paper. A received image is recorded on such paper, and is output.
The above-described printers include a ribbon for transfer, toner and the like, which are used for recording.
Heretofore, in this kind of facsimile, when, for example, a ribbon, toner or the like in a printer is exhausted, it becomes impossible to perform the recording and outputting operation. A hard copy cannot be obtained when it becomes impossible to perform the recording and outputting operation on paper,
Furthermore, even if there exists a required amount of the toner, ribbon or the like, and there exists a required amount of paper for the recording of a plurality of pages in a communication operation, there can also arise a case in which reception becomes impossible.
That is, it is practically extremely difficult to completely prevent the occurrence of jam when paper is output in a printer. Accordingly, it is generally impossible to prevent the occurrence of jam, and there arises the case in which reception becomes impossible due to the occurrence of jam. In particular, a facsimile is often operated when the operator is absent, such as an operation during the night. If jam occurs when the operator is absent, for example, during the night operation, the jammed state cannot be recovered, and hence reception becomes impossible,
The situation is identical if the amount of toner or a ribbon becomes less than a predetermined amount or exhausted during the operation when the operator is absent. Hence, the possibility that excellent reception cannot be performed is large when the operator is absent.
Particularly in the above-described case of the exhaustion of toner, the occurrence of jam or the like in a communication operation, it is not easy to maintain the continuation of the operation even if the operator is there to adopt suitable measures.
As a countermeasure for such a case, it is possible to consider the performance of substituting reception by a memory. In this case, however, it is necessary to provide a large-capacity memory device which can store images of several tens to several hundreds of pages in substituting reception. If such a memory device is provided in a facsimile, the cost of the facsimile increases.
The number of users who have introduced or intend to introduce two or more facsimiles is increasing in the present high-information society. However, if such a user individually has facsimiles having the configuration as described above in order to prevent beforehand the above-described problems, the installation cost inevitably increases in proportion to the number of apparatuses.
On the other hand, a facsimile which does not have the above-described memory device cannot deal with the case as described above, and cannot help but refuse reception on occasion.